Xbox E3 Presentation Will See Changes This Year

Microsoft has plans on changing up the format for the upcoming E3 press conference. There are going to be some major changes this year to accommodate the company's new direction in how the Xbox brand is going to be presented toward the public.

In a podcast published over on the Major Nelson blog, Phil Spencer, the head of the Xbox division, hopped on to talk to Larry Hryb about a variety of topics and one of them touched upon some "positive changes" at this year's upcoming E3, saying...

There are going to be some changes this year. I don't think we've talked about it yet, but I think [there] will be some positive changes at E3. Could be fun for us; it'll be a nice change.

The conversation came about after the group began talking about how great The Game Awards were, along with relaying a funny story about how Larry tried to give Reggie Fils-Aime an Xbox pin in exchange for a Legend of Zelda pin, but the security detail apparently wasn't allowing it to happen. This worked as a segue into talking about how great the games that were on display at The Game Awards were, and how this will help buffer what Microsoft plans to unveil at this year's upcoming E3 event.

According to Spencer, there are still some games not quite coming together the way Microsoft wants, but there's still a bit of time before June gets here. So, apparently, there are some games in the early alpha phase that just are too rough around the edges for Spencer's tastes. Nevertheless, he mentions that there are some changes that have not been publicly discussed with the Xbox community... yet. However, Spencer notes that the changes for the format of the Xbox E3 conference will be "positive changes."

Spencer talks about how the heads at Xbox division are already plotting out times, putting together presentations and drawing up figures for what will go on stage come June. It sounds like a real pleasant time... a pleasant time filled with stress, time constraints and incorrigible deadlines. Oh joy.

On the upside, gamers won't have to worry about all of the corporate shenanigans involved with putting together an hour long press conference, but gamers will likely worry about whether or not the Xbox console will receive the kind of exclusives that gamers have been itching for the last couple of years.

The last two press conferences centered around the Xbox One X, highlighting Microsoft's aim to introduce the world's most powerful home console to date. While the machine is capable of outputting some games at 4K and 30fps, the major issue is that it lacks games. So, hopefully, that "positive" change that Spencer mentioned in the podcast will involve some brand new exclusives that will thoroughly take advantage of all that horsepower under the Xbox One X's hood.

There's been a lot of speculation around the Xbox One X being used to adapt the software for the mixed reality headsets, and it certainly has the horsepower to run those kind of software applications without any problems, but, for now, we'll just have to wait until June to find out what those changes are going to be at E3.